Soledad O’Brien Leaves Host Gig at CNN, Starts Media Company

CNN anchor Soledad O’Brien will no longer be the host of “Starting Point,” and will continue working on documentaries under her own production company, Starfish Media.

O’Brien, who has spearheaded documentaries like “Black in America” on CNN, told The New York Times she will no longer be exclusively tied to CNN and will be able to shoot programs for other networks and air them on the Web. Since O’Brien began hosting “Starting Point” in 2011, the show experienced low ratings, which is presumed to be a factor in CNN‘s decision to pull the plug on the morning news program.

“We had conversations in general about my role at CNN,” O’Brien told the Times. “What we ended up with was, they wanted to partner with me, and I wanted to partner with them.”